February 26, 2018

In AutoCAD 2015 badges were added to the AutoCAD cursor to help you identify the editing operation you were about to perform. For example, when you use the ERASE command and pass the cursor over an object, a small red “X” appears near the pickbox indicating that you are about to erase that object. That little icon is called a cursor badge.

February 22, 2018

Here's an oldie! This wooden pencil doesn't have a date on it but I'm guessing it's from the early nineties if not even the eighties! Who really believed back then that AutoCAD... or any CAD could replace good old paper and pencil?

February 21, 2018

AutoCAD drawings often contain duplicate or overlapping geometry that unnecessarily bloats them and makes them more challenging to edit. There are numerous reasons overlapping geometry might be created, such as copying or drawing new geometry on top of existing geometry. A less obvious example occurred in one of my previous posts where I created geometry from text. In this example, closed polylines defining various parts of the characters had overlapping segments.

When I exploded those closed polylines for editing, I was left with duplicate objects where the polylines had overlapped. It's not be visually obvious so you may not realize it until you begin editing the geometry. For example, if you select one of the segments to erase it or change it’s layer, it may seem like AutoCAD is behaving poorly by ignoring your request. But, in reality, there’s simply a duplicate object in the same location.

To quickly remove duplicate objects, even without knowing if or where they exist, you can use the OVERKILL command. Originally OVERKILL was an Express tool. Because of its popularity it was integrated into AutoCAD as core functionality starting with AutoCAD 2012. You can type the command (OVERKILL) or access it from the Delete Duplicate Objects tool by expanding the Modify panel of the Home ribbon tab. It’s the broom icon because it helps you clean up your drawing!

Simply launch overkill and select the geometry you want to clean up. In my text example, after exploding all the geometry (closed polylines), I selected all the geometry without worrying about which ones may or may not have duplicates.

After selecting objects, the Delete Duplicate Objects dialog box enables you to specify details regarding what is considered duplicate. For example, you can specify a tolerance factor or object properties to ignore. Additional options enable you to combine co-linear objects that partially overlap or are aligned end to end. Most often, I leave the default settings and get exactly the results I expect.

When the operation completes, the Command window indicates how many objects were deleted.

The drawing looks just as it did before but you’ve removed unnecessary objects, reducing file size and potential frustration!

February 20, 2018

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are many tools available to help you learn AutoCAD. Some of my favorite resources are the AutoCAD Preview Guides. Okay, I might be a little biased because I wrote these. But, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred back to them over the years.

The AutoCAD Preview Guides are brief documents that describe everything that was added to the newest release of AutoCAD. I guess I should clarify “brief”. Some of these documents are quite large (up to 50 pages). But, don’t be intimidated! They include many images so that you can see and understand what has been added to AutoCAD even if you don’t yet have the software installed. That’s why they’re called “Preview” Guides!

The Preview Guides don’t go into great detail as far as how to use the various new AutoCAD tools. Instead, they describe the new features, why they’re useful, and how to access them. If you’re considering upgrading from an older release of AutoCAD to the most current version, the Preview Guides can be a great resource to help you learn everything that may be new to you! For example, if you’re upgrading from AutoCAD 2015 to AutoCAD 2018, you’ll want to take a look at the Preview Guides for AutoCAD 2016, 2017, and 2018. Keep in mind there may be a few tools that were added in an earlier release and then modified or, on rare occasions, removed in a more current release. In addition to the main AutoCAD Preview Guides, you'll find some additional versions documenting what was added in the updates for AutoCAD 2017 and 2018.

I’ve created an AutoCAD Resources page on this blog as a central location for some of my favorite websites, documents, and videos. I’ll continue to add to the list and I welcome suggestions for your favorite AutoCAD learning content as well

February 14, 2018

If you read my last post, you learned how to use the EXPLODE Express Tool (TXTEXP command) to explode AutoCAD text for graphical editing. There are, as I pointed out, conventional (ie necessary/boring) reasons you may want to do so. But, in honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a more fun use!

February 13, 2018

Most of us appreciate the intelligence of AutoCAD text. It behaves as text should, enabling you to edit notes and numbered lists as you would in a typical text editor. But, occasionally, you may have the need for text that’s just dumb old graphics (lines, arcs, and circles). For example, maybe you want to draw a creative company logo to insert on your title block or to imprint onto a 3D part. You could, of course, draw all the lines and curves manually. But… Yikes! That would be a true test of your endurance and determination!

As a savvy AutoCAD user, your first thought, like mine, may be to use the EXPLODE command to dumb down the text. Great idea! But AutoCAD doesn’t want to dumb down your intelligent text and will tell you the selected text object can’t be exploded.

Express Tools to the rescue! From the Express Tools menu (only available in AutoCAD, not LT), expand the Modify Text flyout and select Explode. This launches the TXTEXP command which is different from the typical AutoCAD EXPLODE command.

It allows you to explode text objects into geometry. Yay! You did NOT want to draw all those line and arc segments manually!!!

Tip: After using TXTEXP to convert the text to geometry, some of the geometry may be polylines (open and/or closed). For maximum editing flexibility you may want to select all the geometry and explode it again, this time using the plain old EXPLODE command. Doing so will convert all the geometry to segments (lines and arcs).

February 12, 2018

AutoCAD offers you many ways to draw arcs as shown in the very long Arc flyout menu.

The default method (3-Point) lets you easily draw an arc either clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on the three points you pick. But, if you try to draw an arc using any of the other methods AutoCAD automatically draws it counter-clockwise.

You can easily change the arc direction as you draw by simply pressing the Ctrl key.